by Adam Hiatt
“Don’t even think about getting up. Roll over to your stomach, now,” Reddic commanded coldly. The intruder obeyed. Reddic pressed the gun against the base of killer’s skull, pushing his broken nose into the wooden floor panels.
“Go get my backpack,” he said, turning toward Jaxon. Within seconds Jaxon was back in the room. He tossed the bag to Reddic and stepped away.
“Hands behind your back,” he ordered. Reddic removed a black plastic zip tie and yanked it tight around the man’s wrists. On his right hand, in between the thumb and index finger, Reddic noticed a marking. He stared at it, unable to understand its significance. There were twelve dots in a circular pattern with one larger dot in the middle. It was unusual, but could be dismissed as a simple tattoo.
“You’re going to answer every one of my questions without discussion,” Reddic whispered into his left ear. “If you resist or lie I will make sure you feel more pain than you’ve ever experienced in your short, pathetic life. Believe me, I’m an honest guy.” Reddic kicked him in the side lightly to get his attention. “Now roll over.”
As he twisted to his back, Reddic slammed one knee into the arched chest of the supine man. The wind rushed out of his mouth. He dug the gun firmly against his forehead.
“Who sent you here? What are you looking for?” Reddic began. The man was silent. He just stared at Reddic, smiling. He hacked a few times, trying to free his throat of an obstruction.
“Don’t make me ask you again,” Reddic said. The fallen man began to open his mouth, but instead of speaking he discharged a ball of saliva. The phlegm connected just below Reddic’s right eye, dangling for a moment before falling off. Reddic reached back and slapped the man with the backside of his hand. He recoiled but quickly faced forward again with the same venomous smile. Setting the gun on the floor, Reddic pulled the man’s greasy hair with his left hand. In his right he gripped the letter opener.
“The only religion I ever liked was that eye for eye rubbish. Let’s apply it here, shall we. You got my eye, now I’m going to get yours.” Reddic placed the steel tip beneath the killer’s right eye. He pressed down, inching it under the eyeball. Small beads of blood ran down the blade. For the first time Reddic saw genuine fear in the man’s face.
“First question. Who sent you?” The man kicked his legs violently, like a horse trying to throw its rider. Reddic leaned on his throat to cut off his air supply. The letter opener was still prying at the eyeball.
“Stop it, Reddic!” Jaxon shouted, pulling at his shoulder. Reddic fell backward, catching himself before he hit the floor. He jumped to his feet and faced Jaxon.
“Stay out of this, Jaxon. This is the only way we can find answers,” he said. He moved closer. “I’m not going to hurt him, but he has to believe that I will,” he whispered.
“What is he doing?” Jaxon asked, suddenly looking terrified. Twisting around, Reddic saw that the man was convulsing on the floor. White foam streamed out of his mouth on both sides. Reddic jumped down and squeezed his cheeks, hoping to locate the source of the poison. Within seconds the massive killer was lying motionless on the floor. It was then that Reddic saw the source. A plastic lining about six millimeters long had been sown into the left collar of the man’s jacket. Ripped open, it looked like a crazed animal had bitten into it. Reddic loosened his grip on the man’s face and stood slowly with his back to Jaxon. He peered out the window, ruminating over what he had just witnessed. He was angry with himself for not having considered the possibility of a concealed chemical agent, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.
He spun around fluidly on the ball of his left foot. Jaxon must have seen fire in his eyes because he suddenly looked more frightened of his brother than the lifeless killer.
“Your first mistake was showing sympathy. Don’t you get it? This guy was here to torture and kill you,” Reddic said solemnly. Jaxon’s eyes widened at the realization that the dead corpse lying on the floor could have been him.
“I’m sorry, Reddic. You were scaring me. I honestly thought you were going to dislodge his eyeball.”
“And what if I was? Why would that concern you?”
“It concerns me because you were executing a sadistic judgment without the consent of a jury of his peers. That’s called vigilantism.”
“I will say this only once,” Reddic interrupted. “Sometimes going through the channels of the justice system is the wrong play. Before you give a rebuttal let me finish. I’m not condoning vigilantism. I’m simply referring to swift action that produces immediate results for the benefit of others.”
“I understand your position, but who gives you the authority to determine what course of action to take?” Jaxon asked. “Think about it. If everybody assumed law enforcement prerogatives on a whim this country would be in anarchy. It would plunge us back into the nineteenth century when mobs persecuted religious movements. Don’t you remember?”
Reddic sighed heavily. There was so much about his life that his brother couldn’t begin to fathom right now. However, he knew to continue this conversation would be pointless. He needed Jaxon to stay with him.
“You’re right as usual,” Reddic said. “I acted too rash. I thought that maybe with the right amount of coercion this guy would disclose a piece of information that could be of some worth,” he said, trying to sound reconciliatory.
“I know you were only trying to help,” Jaxon said, reaching out for Reddic’s shoulder. “Needless to say, you indirectly saved my life. I didn’t realize it until only moments ago. Thank you,” he said. Reddic modestly nodded and gave a half smile. “There is something I think I should tell you. It involves my dissertation topic, but I have a feeling it might carry some relevance to our current predicament.”
“What is it?” Reddic asked. Jaxon’s eyes searched the ceiling of the office.
“Maybe this isn’t the best place to discuss it,” he said finally.
“You’re a quick study. We should probably leave the building as soon as possible.”
Squatting to pick up the gun, Reddic removed the magazine, cleared the chamber, and placed it in his backpack. He pulled out his phone and flipped it open. He faced the map and recorded a picture in the phone’s memory with its miniature camera and then returned it to his pocket.
The letter opener was lying on the floor beside the poisoned killer. Reddic scooped it up and marched out of the office. He saw a water fountain fifteen yards down the hall and headed for it. There, he rinsed the blood off the stainless steel blade and dried it; also making sure that no evidence was left in the water dispenser’s basin. He jogged back to Langford’s office, stopping only to replace the letter opener in Cutler’s desk. When he reached the room he found Jaxon standing against the far wall looking out of the windows.
“What are you looking at?” he asked curiously.
“You’re not going to like it,” Jaxon responded.
Reddic jumped to Jaxon’s side in what seemed like a nanosecond. He glared through the window, but his face didn’t divulge what he was feeling inside—alarm. Parked behind McGraw hall were three police cruisers. The blue and red lights hypnotically bounced off the exterior of the building. But why were there no sirens?
“What are they doing here?” he asked.
“I called them,” Jaxon said guiltily.
“Not very smart, Jax.”
“I thought it was at the time,” Jaxon cut in defensively. “The maniac used a bomb, Reddic. You had nothing but a letter opener, which I didn’t even know you had. How was I supposed to know this would be the outcome?” he said, motioning toward the killer on the floor.
“Did you identify yourself?”
“No. I don’t know why but I didn’t. I guess I panicked. I said I was the janitor.”
“You didn’t use your cell phone did you?”
“I used Dr. Cutler’s office phone. Have you checked your phone up here? Half the time service is nonexistent.”
“What did you say exactly?”
“That I was cleaning the inside of an office when I heard a startling explosion from Dr. Langford’s office.”
“Langford’s office,” Reddic repeated absently. He rested his eyes on the floor as he forced his mind to process the information. There were too many variables that made no sense. According to his calculations, if Jaxon called the police immediately following the detonation then approximately ten minutes had elapsed. Why weren’t they already up here? The main doors were locked, but that wouldn’t slow them down for more than a minute or two.
Another problem was the stealth. He couldn’t understand why the cops would respond to a 9-1-1 call without a clear and audible warning. Unless…
Reddic’s head shot up.
“We’ve got to go,” he said.
Chapter Nine
Silently walking through the hallway, Reddic carried Langford’s computer to the staircase, resting it on the glossy wooden railing. Jaxon stood two paces to the left feeling slightly unsettled, not to mention petrified. He was utterly unaware of what was happening, or even what his brother was about to do. He felt wholly out of control and desperately sought some way to alter the status quo. He despised not being in control.
Jaxon liked to view himself as a precocious student, excelling at being able to find patterns to subdue any academic obstacle. For example, at one point during the last year of completing his undergraduate degree, another history student was prepping for the Law School Admission Test. He watched this student dedicate countless hours of frustration to the test, allowing his core degree work to slip. Jaxon took the fellow classmate out to lunch and explained to him that the secret to conquering standardized tests was to isolate the elemental blueprint of the exam. To prove his point he attended one of the overpriced preparation classes on a Saturday morning and suffered through almost four hours of tedium to take a practice test. He presented his score to his friend: he missed only two questions.
Today was turning out to be altogether different. There was absolutely no pattern to follow, and Jaxon struggled to adjust. He was earning a PhD; he was supposed to feel comfortable, in his element when faced with the unexpected. He was supposed to have a fastidious analytical mind. Yet, he felt the complete opposite. He felt like a cowing mass of intellectual uncertainty; he felt like he was losing his mind.
***
The computer dropped off the railing and tumbled down the old steps. The bulky box of plastic and glass exploded off the sharp angles of the staircase. The dissonant sound of the fracturing materials echoed throughout the passages below, piercing the silence. Carefully, Reddic listened for the slightest hint of human activity on the levels below. Everything seemed still; too still. Where were the cops? Were they hiding?
The sun was disappearing beyond the western horizon, rapidly lessening the natural light that had illuminated the hallways. Reddic searched the walls to his right for a light switch, finding one only a few feet away. The florescent bulbs on the ceiling flickered and came to life at the touch of his finger. As Reddic returned to the stair railing the lights suddenly went out. He flicked the switch again, but nothing happened.
Something wasn’t right.
The sound of dusty hinges scraping together came from somewhere below. The screeching noise seemed to follow the path of the stairwell, spilling out where he sat.
Reddic frantically pulled Jaxon away from the railing. “We don’t have much time. Is there a fire escape in the building?” he asked in a low whisper.
“I don’t know,” Jaxon said. “I’ve never had to use one.”
“Well, then how many exits are there?”
“Only the three doors on the east side.”
“Great. We can’t go near those, they’re not safe,” Reddic said absently.
“I have an idea. I’ll just tell the police officers that we were working late in the grad lab. That should do the trick.”
What was he talking about, Reddic wondered? He could only stare at him in amazement. He never imagined that his older brother would think so foolishly.
“We’re not going to talk to the cops,” he snapped angrily. “We need to slip out of the building unnoticed. But that seems virtually impossible considering our only exits lead to the quad where the blueberries are waiting. Trust me. You don’t want to talk to whoever is out there.”
“Wait, there may be another way out,” said Jaxon. “It just came to me. I remember running into it on accident one day during my first week here.”
“Where does it lead?”
“It leads to the southeast side, away from the main exits. It’s actually quite obvious once you know what to look for.”
“Do many people know about it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then it might be a possibility. Let’s hurry.”
They scurried down the corridor until it ended at the southernmost point of the building where the hallway abruptly ended. Reddic spun around thinking they had overrun their destination. All that was there were two identical doors facing them.
“That’s funny, don’t you think?” Jaxon said.
“What’s funny?” Reddic questioned, feeling his irritation rising.
“This door,” he said.
Reddic found no humor in this dead end. The two doors in front of him weren’t exits at all; they were offices. The nameplate on the right door read, DR GRAY STEVENS, PROFESSOR OF MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN HISTORY. The left read, DR. EGRESSUS INCOGNITUS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS.
Jaxon reached for the brass handle on the left door and lifted. It swung open freely into a dark, windowless room. Reddic took two steps inside before he was hit with a familiar stench of stagnant air. He stopped and smiled, knowing immediately where they were.
“I must admit,” he said, turning to Jaxon. “The door had me confused.”
“I thought it might. That’s why nobody uses this staircase. It’s hidden right out in the open. The irony is the door signpost basically announces its existence. Egressus Incognitus is Latin for unknown or obscure exit.” Even in the dark Reddic knew his brother had a conspiratorial grin imprinted on his face.
They scampered down the narrow stairs as lightly as their body masses would permit. The absence of light and the furtiveness with which they moved made the descent feel interminable. Soon, a faint glow became visible from somewhere below. At the sight of the light they involuntarily increased their speed, almost jumping down the remaining steps.
They reached the source of illumination; it was an emergency floodlight mounted just above an old metallic door. Bolted to it was a tin plate with a message that read, KEEP LOCKED AT ALL TIMES. At the bottom right of the door was a tiny rubber stopper propping it open less than an inch, but enough to prevent it from locking.
“That explains it,” Reddic muttered to himself.
“Pardon me?” Jaxon said.
“I couldn’t figure out how they entered and exited the building so stealthily. This must be it,” he said.
He gently nudged the door open with his knee and poked his head out to scan the grounds. There wasn’t much to see because the exit was below ground, something Reddic didn’t anticipate. The only thing he could be sure of was that no guard stood vigilant outside that particular location, which was really all he wanted to know.
Reddic stepped through the door and breathed in the cool night air. Jaxon stayed within arm’s reach behind him. In front of them a concrete ramp appeared to ascend to the starry sky above. Reddic wasn’t sure why this path led to the basement of the building; he was only grateful that it was there.
With long, quick strides they climbed to the top and stopped. The ramp opened up to the ground level of the southeast corner of the structure. Visibility was almost nonexistent. The sun had already set behind the western hills, leaving only darkness in its wake. Small pockets of light emanated from various lamps mounted near the entrances of the surrounding buildings. McGraw Hall, however, was a black spot in the night, like an oil spill in water.
Reddic crouched down at the corner of the building, grateful that neither he nor Jaxon were wearing white clothes. He inched his way out to gain a better view of the entrance to the building.
There was nobody there.
Reddic felt a chill roll down his spine. Something was definitely out of place. Unless these cops were complete incompetents, he knew it was highly unlikely that they would all rush in, leaving the exits unwatched.
He lowered himself to his knees and ran his hands over the ground. His fingers fumbled through the dirt until he found what he wanted. Halfway embedded in a small flower patch, serving as a buffer between the building and the grassy interior, was a smooth rock three inches in diameter. Reddic picked it up with his right hand and stood facing the north. He reached back and hurled the stone toward the main entrance. He hoped that his aim was accurate.
The igneous stone disturbed the stillness of the evening. It landed squarely on the bluestone stairs and ricocheted off, skipping across the soft grass of the inner quad. Reddic watched closely to see what would happen. From beneath a tree standing only ten yards from the building a silhouette appeared. It cautiously approached the source of the unexpected sound. Reddic peered closer, but saw no other movement in the area.
He felt around the flowers until he found another stone. He spun around and pulled Jaxon up beside him.
“Get ready to run away to the south,” he whispered. “On my mark.” Reddic threw the rock away from the building this time. When it struck the earth the silhouetted figure reflexively moved in that direction. Immediately, Reddic gripped Jaxon’s arm and sprinted off in the opposite direction.
The route was anything but direct. Reddic moved in and out of the trees that lined the quad, thinking the circuitous course would help conceal their passage away from McGraw Hall. In less than a minute they passed between the two libraries constituting the southern border of the arts quad.